Recording Balancing tracks

[Jules]

A production query. Can I pick the brains of someone production savvy please? I’m putting together a short album and have more or less finished the recording and mixing. Track 2 finishes quite sonically dense, not actually loud but a full, fat sound. Track 3 starts with a slow build of synth and soft percussion washes building over about 2 minutes. While each track sounds fine independently the drop in power across the just between them doesn’t sounds very odd and out of place.

Is this the kind of thing compression is used to iron out? I’ve never really got the subtleties of what exactly one does with compressors. And, if not, how would you recommend approaching an issue like this? I'm a bit reluctant to beef up the intro of the third track as it would rather spoil the slow build

 

[AndyB]

I'm not 100% clear on your question but there is a production technique called side-chained compression that lets you have options like this.

1. If the bass guitar and bass drum sound at the same time, make the bass guitar more-prominent by compressing the drum more, or alternatively....

2. If the bass guitar and bass drum sound at the same time, make the bass drum more-prominent by compressing the guitar more.

This is accomplished by using the volume level of one track to control the compression level of another track (or tracks). This technique is used widely in EDM but has other uses when you want to bring out one instrument in a mix but do not want to just suppress all the other tracks.

Another production technique is to hard pan one track to one channel and the rest of the mix to the other channel during the passages where you want to emphasize that track. This gives that one track its own sonic space without changing the overall volume levels.

 

[Veggie Dave]

Are you saying the last track is peaking while sounding less loud than the other two tracks?

 

[Jules]

Ah yes- Many thanks for the response, I've got the basics of side chain compression under my belt.

This is something a bit different. Its to do with- for a want of a better word- the overall presence of a track when it starts. Its really about fattening the synth intro without simply making it louder. The (by my standards) subtle start sounds weedy rather than atmospheric due to contrast with what preceded it.

I'm a bit stumped and- for reasons of the flow of the entire piece- don't really want to swap track order to work round it

 

[Jules]

Are you saying the last track is peaking while sounding less loud than the other two tracks?

Not peaking- its fine but its going straight from a beefy sounding track into a very light start, which- as a function of this- is making that sound a bit thin... its about subtle ways of fattening up a section without loosing the fact its an atmospheric intro and builds from that point...

 

[Veggie Dave]

It's hard without hearing it. Most reverb plug-ins allow you to choose the tonal qualities (technically not EQ) of the effect. Perhaps have a reverb with deep lows? Or add a sound that's not there as a musical note but for tonal reasons?

If the keyboards are playing chords, then have two tracks of each keyboard panned hard left and right, with each side playing different chord notes. That would make it sound nice and wide.

 

[Veggie Dave]

A quick example:

E7.wav

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E7 panned.wav

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Exactly the same chord; the only difference is panning.

 

[MikeMorrell]

I have absolutely no experience in music production but I found your question interesting and I googled it. From a quick scan, a 'fat sound' seems to result from boosting the lower frequencies in the mix. This article might help.

A production query. Can I pick the brains of someone production savvy please? I’m putting together a short album and have more or less finished the recording and mixing. Track 2 finishes quite sonically dense, not actually loud but a full, fat sound. Track 3 starts with a slow build of synth and soft percussion washes building over about 2 minutes. While each track sounds fine independently the drop in power across the just between them doesn’t sounds very odd and out of place.

Is this the kind of thing compression is used to iron out? I’ve never really got the subtleties of what exactly one does with compressors. And, if not, how would you recommend approaching an issue like this? I'm a bit reluctant to beef up the intro of the third track as it would rather spoil the slow build

 

[Pete Thomas]

I'm a bit reluctant to beef up the intro of the third track as it would rather spoil the slow build

This is very tricky, I was once working with an artist (won't mention her name in case i get accused of name dropping) and one track started extremely quietly then suddenly loud after about a minute.

I explained to her the problem that people would turn up their system to hear the beginning, then when it got loud they would have their ears blasted off. She grinned and said yes let's do it then!

So I think dynamic things that work well live for that kind of surprise do usually need ironing out for recordings (and especially true if it will ever be on vinyl but in that case there will be a specialist vinyl mastering engineer necessary.

You don't actually need side chain compression for this, but you do need compression usually (combined maybe with adjustment of peak levels) I would recommend multiband compression which acts indepently on different frequency bands. If you are doing the balancing with moniors that aren't great or in a room that has acoustic anomalies then it can be a very hit and miss process. One way round that is to check on headphones and other places such as a car and/or different rooms.

The other way is to get a mastering enginneer to do it

 

[Colin the Bear]

Fade the loud ending into the quiet beginning?

 

[AndyB]

This is something a bit different. Its to do with- for a want of a better word- the overall presence of a track when it starts. Its really about fattening the synth intro without simply making it louder.

Jules, I have heard that one simple trick for fattening up a track is simply to add a small bit of mild high-midrange distortion. There are some multi-band distortion plug-ins that I've heard are good for that trick. I've heard a tube-based multiband distortion plug-in used on saxophone for this to add harmonic richness to thicken the sound in a certain frequency band.

Another trick is using EQ. You can boost that synth track at its predominant frequency and use a notch in the EQ of the other tracks to suppress that same frequency to allow the synth to stand out. That would have about the same effect as the multiband compressor idea of Pete's. I bought a couple of music production courses that basically say that when things get muddy or muddled-sounding, then find a frequency band for each track to act like a swim lane. Then either use multiband compression or EQ to keep the other tracks out of that swim lane.

 

[Clivey]

You might want to import all of your wavs into a new master project and sit them in a continuous linear track. At the very least this will allow you to inspect the waveforms for amplitude and other stuff and then make all your adjustments you need pre master mixdown.
You can then either export the whole thing as one continuous track with segues to separate later or infact keep as one track over a bed or whatever you fancy.
If it were me I would probably use an envelope on the quiet intro with a short and steep ramp up to the full level but this is destructive and you can do the same with an automated fade up.
It's a cake and you are the baker Jules.

 

[Jules]

Many thanks for the tip chaps. Next time I’ve got a studio session I’m going to dig into a few of these. Rather predictably- I duplicated the project and stripped all effects and EQ tweaks from it. Lo and behold the result is, if not better, than at least a cleaner and an easier blank canvas to adjust. I feel there’s a big danger here of (a) over doing the bells and whistles- reverb in particular & (b) concentrating on getting individual stems, or individual tracks, polished at the expense of a bigger overview

 

[AndyB]

Many thanks for the tip chaps. Next time I’ve got a studio session I’m going to dig into a few of these. Rather predictably- I duplicated the project and stripped all effects and EQ tweaks from it. Lo and behold the result is, if not better, than at least a cleaner and an easier blank canvas to adjust. I feel there’s a big danger here of (a) over doing the bells and whistles- reverb in particular & (b) concentrating on getting individual stems, or individual tracks, polished at the expense of a bigger overview

From what I have heard that is sometimes the best solution when all else fails. One recommendation that I've heard is to mute everything but bass and drums and balance those tracks at a total level of -6dB and then add one track at a time back in maintaining the balance.